All the Birds in the Sky

Patricia Delfine is an ordinary girl living an ordinary childhood in her ordinary home. That is until one day when she decides to help a bird with a broken wing, who tells Patricia she's a witch and leads her to the Parliament of Birds, who give her an Endless Question to prove that she's really a witch. Will she be able to solve the riddle? Will she find a way to deal with her slightly sadistic sister? Will she unlock her true powers and become a protector of nature?

Laurence (with a U, not a W) is a shy kid who spends most of his time at home building things like an almost-functioning supercomputer and a watch that takes him two seconds into the future.  One day, he decides to sneak out of school to see a rocket launch at MIT. Will he use this time-skipping watch to expand on science's understanding of time? Will he succeed in creating a supercomputer? Will anyone ever stop calling him Larry?

The answers to these questions are all "maybe," because all of that happens in the first two chapters and then we immediately skip forwards by several years. Now, Patricia and Laurence both attend Canterbury Academy, a high school in which neither of them quite fit. Fortunately, they find each other, and tentatively start forming a friendship. Before long, the two become fast friends, and have all the sorts of misadventures that you would expect from a feel-good novel about high-school aged kids.

PSYCHE! They're soon separated and don't see each other for ten years, during which they split into their respective separate and irreconcilable worlds! Charlie Jane Anders has fooled you again! So yeah, Laurence is now a fancy science man who does fancy science, and Patricia is now a witch who does witchy things. Like for example assassination? I'm pretty sure Patricia is an assassin now? It's unclear. The point is, fancy science and witchy things can never ever go together, so Patricia and Laurence have an uncrossable rift between them, which they must somehow bridge if they are to ever be friends again.

Fortunately, our two protagonists have all the time they need to get to know each other, because the world is ending. Oh wait no that's bad. Don't worry, there are plans in the works to fix the oncoming apocalypse, which has to do with the climate changing by the way. Patricia's witch squad has proposed the worst plan in the universe, so that's maybe a bad idea. Fortunately, Laurence's science squad has proposed an alternative, which is also a bad plan but is preferable in that it is not the worst plan in the universe. The actual contents of both plans are kinda spoilers so I won't go into them here, but I mean really could they not like try any non-last-resort ideas given that they are not yet at a last-resort stage of the apocalypse?

Okay, I'm being a bit mean here. All the Birds in the Sky is a fun book, even if it does get somewhat pushed around by fridge logic. Laurence's science inventions are all pretty cool, even though they never get to a super useful practical level, much less an Iron Man level (with one spoilerish exception). Patricia's magic spells are rich and varied, and the associated costs keep them from feeling too overpowered. All in all, it's a pretty well-done balance of tech and magic.

If I do have any complaints, and I do, they're mostly about elements of the world, and in particular its portrayal of "the science side." First off, the idea of an uncrossable rift between magic and science bothers me. This is probably because of my obsession familiarity with science. See, science is a process and a lens through which you can see the world, and even if it doesn't entirely work you can at least try to apply science to magic. I guess I've been spoiled by things like Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Artemis Fowl, Girl Genius, Atomic Robo, (but I'm going to invisible this text so that no one knows that I consider these magic-and-science, the first being science at heart and the last two being magic at heart) and The Entire SCP Wiki. In short, the problem I have is that the driving force of conflict (science vs magic) is something that I think is stupid.

Then, there's the trouble of how the science side in itself is portrayed. It's more of an "I have invented this cool thing now" than an "I am curious about how the universe works and how I can make it work for me." To see what I mean, let's take another look at that time-machine watch. First of all, and I admit this is nit-picky, the book acts as if two seconds is a really short amount of time. Like, Laurence skips forward two seconds and nobody notices because it just looks like he's flickering. This is two seconds: . That doesn't look like flickering to me.

But, more than that, there's the whole concept of the watch itself. Why two seconds? Why can't you jump more or less time? How does the watch know what to move forward and what to not affect? How would it affect a liquid? What reference frame is it using for the output point in space? How much mass can it affect? What happens to the space you used to take up in the two seconds are gone? None of these questions are asked by any of the characters, not even the ones that are meant to be "science people". My point is that an actual scientist would do so much with this, but in All the Birds in the Sky it's dismissed as just another "science thing."

It is, however, pretty clear why these avenues are not explored. All the Birds in the Sky isn't a book about the difficulties of reconciling science and magic. It's a book about Patricia Delfine and Laurence WaitDidHeHaveALastName, and their relationship with each other. The science fiction is of the pulpy magic-but-with-"quantum"-on-it variety. Essentially, in All the Birds in the Sky, "science" is a less effective and less reliable form of magic, with the bonus of not having any apparent costs. The split between the two sides is there only to drive the conflict of the book, and it works.

In conclusion, let this be a lesson to you all that thinking too hard about books can be bad for you. After a thousand words of text, my actual position towards All the Birds in the Sky seems murky. To be clear: I did like the book, although many of its elements ticked me off in just the wrong ways. If you want a deep exploration into whether or not science can be reconciled with magic, then this is probably not the book for you (and, honestly, I can't think of a single book which focuses on that question). If, however, you want to read a relationship drama between two awkward misfits, with the added spice of them being from different worlds and at the start of an apocalypse, then All the Birds in the Sky might be the book for you.

Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse book 3)

It’s still the future, and not thinking about Venus is no longer an option. Y’see, the thing that used to be on Venus seems to have commandeered the planet to create a giant circle in space. A strapping young man by the name of Expendable McPlotPoint pulls the daredevil stunt of the millennium and shoots himself past the Martian Blockade, becoming the first to travel directly through the strange giant circle and into whatever lies on the other side. Spoilers: he doesn’t survive. Not even a little bit.

So that's fun. Oh and Holden is still around by the way, doing his Holdeny thing: leading his crew through space, taking jobs from whoever offers the most spacebucks, and generally holding stuff together. His new ghost friend, whose origins and motive remain mysterious, has told Holden to stay away from the space circle formerly known as Venus. Holden agrees with his ghost friend wholeheartedly, and resolves to give the space circle formerly known as Venus a wide birth. I sure hope that works out for him.

Meanwhile, Annushka Volovodov, a humble space pastor, is having a nice time past-ing space (or whatever it is space pastors do). She gets offered the opportunity of a lifetime: travel with the United Nations (the government of Earth) along with other religious folks and such to witness for herself the glory of the space circle formerly known as Venus. She accepts the offer (which is technically a spoiler but I mean come on) and finds herself well on her way to what is about to be the biggest mess in human history.

Also on his way to this mess is Carlos c de Baca, known as "bull" to his friends, who is in charge of the largest ship in the solar system, which has been creatively named the Behemoth. Just once I want an ultimate mega-warship which is called something innocuous like the Lilac or the Flying Festoon. Anyways, Bull has been personally asked by the leader of the Outer Planets Alliance to keep the Behemoth in shape. After McPlotPoint does his crazy stunt, Bull is ordered to meet with the Earth and Mars forces at the space circle formerly known as Venus, to show them that the OPA are team players.

Rounding off the cast of four we have Petunia Adams-Rogers, a farm girl from Oklahoma who has never stepped out of the Earth's atmosphere, but dreams of traveling the stars. After a surprise visit from an esteemed scientist to her college, she is offered the chance to join Anna in the UN ship set for the space circle formerly known as Venus. She of course agrees, and– yeah okay I think that's enough of this gag.

No, Petunia does not exist. She was probably murdered by Clarissa Mao, so that Clarissa Mao could take her place and pretend to be a protagonist. Clarissa is the sister of Julie Mao (the subject of Miller's search in the first book) and the daughter of Jules-Pierre Mao (one of the richest people in future history), who was taken down by Holden and company in the previous book. Oh, um, I guess that was a spoiler for the second book. Oops. Now, Clarissa has only one goal in her mind: discredit Holden, make everyone think he's garbage, and then kill him. Because he's a paragon, and paragons are immune to ordinary store-bought revenge.

Abaddon's Gate is fun, and I think captures more of the action-drama of the first book. There's still a lot of political drama going on, what with everyone having a look at the space circle formerly known as Venus and all, but there's also plenty of explosions and guns and whatever it is Clarissa Mao does. Speaking of Clarissa, it was very interesting to have an honest-to-god antagonist as a POV character. She's not an antihero, and we're not meant to empathize with her, and she doesn't even have any delusions of righteousness or whatever. She's just an insane murderer, and the fact that we know what she's doing and planning makes us all the more worried for the protagonists, which turns the suspense up to eleven.

As for the rest of the characters, I don't feel like they were really as strong as those from the first and second books. Bull and Anna in particular seemed to get the short end of the characterization stick. I get the sense that, out of the four characters in Abaddon's Gate, Anna is followed the least, but I'm not sure if that's reflective of the actual number of chapters she's in.

Despite these flaws, Abaddon's Gate is still a fast-paced and well-written action drama that keeps you hooked until the very end. I think it is my second favorite of the Expanse books so far, after Leviathan Wakes (the first one). My conclusion is of course that if you liked the second one then you'll like this one, which shouldn't really surprise anyone. I'm not even sure if these count as reviews anymore, because I'm just summarizing the setup and making a few comments. Ah, well, I'll keep doing these regardless. They're fun.

Anyways, yeah. Series are series. Give Abbadon's Gate a shot if and only if you wanna. Peace.

Caliban's War (The Expanse book 2)

Caliban's War is the second book in the Expanse series. It's still the future, and everything is mostly fine as long as you don't think about Venus so don't think about Venus. The three superpowers (Earth, Mars, and the Belt) are eyeing each other nervously. As long as nobody rocks the boat, and Venus stays quiet, it looks like things will go back to normal soon.

Bobbie Draper is working on Ganymede, a moon where scientists do farming. She's in the Martian military, and her job is to stare at the Earth military while farming happens. Because, seriously, who would attack a farm moon? Then a lanky humanoid with huge hands and a huge head rips through both teams and violently explodes. Bobbie is the only survivor. Now, she's got one thing on her mind: revenge. And also I think she has PTSD.

But, she wasn't the only person on Ganymede. There was also Praxidike Meng, or "Prax," one of the aforementioned farm scientists. Now his science farm has been destroyed, along with most of his life's work. At least he still has his daughter, Amy or somethingMei, who was kidnapped shortly before the monster appeared so okay maybe he doesn't have his daughter. Still, he has a slim hope of finding her, so that's what he'll do.

Back on Earth, Chrisjen Avasarala is hard at work as a politician trying to keep the solar system falling apart. Then this whole Ganymede business happens, and things start really getting bad. Also, Venus seems to be acting up a bit. Try not to think about it. Anyways, she's got to put all the pieces together and figure out who done the monster, and also make some friends.

And James Holden is still there, with his crew, trying to deal with things as best he can. He messes up slightly less in this one. I think he's learning.

So, to be honest, I liked the original book better than this one. First of all, Leviathan Wakes straight-up had more action, and I like my boom boom bang. Second, I feel like only having two main characters, rather than the four in Caliban's War, kept things simpler and more predictable, which I felt was a good thing. There's no character order in Caliban's War, so it sometimes just flips between two characters without addressing the other two, which lessens a bit the feeling of everything is going wrong everywhere.

Still, Caliban's War is a good book, and the new characters are all nice. If you liked Leviathan Wakes, you'll probably like it. Yep, that's my big final rating: "If you liked the first one, you might want to continue the series." Don't I feel smart.

Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse book 1)

Space. The final frontier. Humanity, insatiable in its quest for exploration, tosses itself into the void between worlds, strapped to tin cans with high explosives. What could possibly go wrong? Well, James S. A. Corey (who is actually two people or something) aims to find out in Leviathan Wakes, the first book of a (planned) nine-book series.

Meet James Holden, executive officer on a freighter which brings ice between planets. The solar system is a big place, after all, and people still need water. Unfortunately, when responding to a mysterious distress beacon, the freighter is nuked and almost all of Holden's friends are killed. It's not pretty.

Let's see if Josephus Miller is doing any better. He's a detective on Ceres station, born and raised in the Belt. He's running into some trouble because his partner, Havelock, is from Earth, which means that Belters don't like him so much. Still, everything should be fine, as long as some Earther doesn't inadvertently start a war because someone nuked his freighter and almost all of his friends were killed. But what are the chances of that, am I right?

So, yeah, now a war is brewing. The Earth and Mars are looking at each other all shifty, and the Outer Planets Alliance which claims to represent the belt is making everyone a bit antsy. Also, there's that thing from the introduction which hasn't shown up in a while. Hope that's not important. Now Holden is on a mission to find out who killed his ship, and Miller is on a mission to find a lost girl named Julie, and... well, things get a bit hectic.

Leviathan Wakes is a bangin' book. It's got killer pacing, and characters that are interesting and fun to be with. The world seems real and realistic, even with the crazier things that show up. The tension and the stakes keep getting ramped up, with more and more people being dragged in, and then you remember the title is "Leviathan Wakes" and get really worried. To make things even more intense, we follow Holden and Miller in alternating chapters, so there's almost always a cliffhanger after each chapter even if you don't stop reading, which I think is a really cool way to do things.

If you like high-stakes space drama mystery action, or if you want to become lost in a world which might be about to lose itself, or if you want to get to know interesting characters which could all die at any moment, then you should read Leviathan Wakes. And probably the rest of The Expanse.

Scythe

It's the future. Everything is great. An incredibly powerful AI known only as the Thunderhead has taken over the world, and is hell-bent on making life good for everyone. There's no more war, no more poverty, no more disease, and no more death. With one exception.

The Scythes (pronounced SKITH-ees) are an organization of people who are tasked with keeping the population in check by killing ("gleaning") people. They are the most revered and feared members of society. Citra and Rowan are two of the minority of people who outwardly disapproves of the Scythes, which sucks for them, because a wise old Scythe named Faraday has appointed them as apprentices.

Now, Citra and Rowan have to compete with each other to see who gets to become a Scythe. Except, neither one actually wants the job. But they both kinda do. It's good fun. Also, there's this whole thing with these Scythes who are holding "mass gleanings," which are exactly as terrible as they sound. I hope those guys don't cause any trouble.

Neal Shusterman's Scythe is a pretty fun book. The story is a whirlwind, with mysteries that had me genuinely second-guessing myself throughout the book. Seeing the separate journeys of Citra and Rowan as they learn how to kill is cool. It's apparently the first book in a trilogy, but the ending is actually really satisfying, so it can stand entirely on its own. Scythe also pokes at some really interesting issues about death and longevity and utopia. If you like a bit of action, a bit of mystery, and a lot of murder, then you should pick up Scythe.

Flatterland

Flatterland is full of puns and science. Really, if it weren't for the name "Ian Stewart" on the front, I'd suspect it had somehow been written by me. Flatterland is a "sequel" of sorts to Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland, which I suppose you should technically read first, although I think Flatterland stands perfectly well on its own. Still, a quick review/summary of Flatland is in order.

Boop. Just did a quick review. Two paragraphs. It doesn't even have a picture of the cover. Go read it, if you'd like.

Anyways, back to Flatterland. As the tagline says, it's like Flatland, only more so. And with a healthy helping of Alice in Wonderland to boot. Flatterland is set about a hundred years after Flatland, and follows the adventures of Victoria "Vikki" Line, a woman who finds her some-number-of-greats-grandfather's book, which is entitled Flatland. (Yes, they are actually the same book.) Anyways, Vikki reads Flatland, and in it finds instructions for summoning a being from Spaceland, in a way that is kind of hilarious.

So, Vikki summons someone from Spaceland. However, she gets a bit more than she bargained for. Instead of the stuffy, boring old Sphere from Flatland, she meets a loud, energetic, grinning creature known as the Space Hopper, who can travel through much more than just stuffy, boring old Spaceland. The Space Hopper equips Vikki with a Virtual Unreality Engine, or VUE, and takes her on a tour of all sorts of spaces and geometries, meeting many strange people along the way. They pay special attention to a strange place called Planiturth, and the fact that its inhabitants don't really know which space they're in.

Personally, I really liked Flatterland. I'm a big fan of puns, and math, and paradoxes, and big toothy grins, and winks directed at the fourth wall, so what's not to like? I think Ian does a good job of describing and explaining all the spaces, and why they're all cool. If I had one complaint, it would be that there aren't enough pictures. Actually, I do have that complaint. A book about geometries should have more pictures in it. But, besides that, it's a fun read, and it stays crazy enough to always keep you guessing. If you like bending your brain a bit, and you don't mind a good pun every once in a while (or a bad pun (or twenty)), then I think you should try Ian Stewart's Flatterland.

The Rest Of Us Just Live Here

The Rest Of Us Just Live Here is about the life of a boy named Mikey during his last few weeks of high school. He hangs out with his sister Mel, his best friend Jared, and his not-girlfriend Henna. He's just trying to live his normal life and come to terms with leaving his friends and family to go to college. And, hopefully, finally ask Henna out on a date.

Then, there's also that whole teen adventure thing going on. Something to do with blue light and immortals and whatnot. But, that's not Mikey's problem. The indie kids can deal with that, like they always have, and eventually one of them will become the chosen one or whatever and save the world. Mikey and his friends? Background characters. Nothing they can do. As long as the indie kids can keep their problems to themselves, Mikey's got bigger things to worry about (like that new kid Nathan? What's his deal??).

I love everything about this book. First of all, I love the premise of it being a story about the background characters in a teen adventure novel. It's amazing how well Patrick Ness gets that theme across without making it seem like a gimmick. Somehow, he makes the presence of the "indie kids" (protagonists) seem like "a fact of life" but not "'just a fact of life." I also love all of the characters, and how relatable they are, and just how alive they feel. Every single one of them. Well, except the immortals, but they don't entirely count. I love the ending so much that I won't say anything more about it. It's just so great.

If you like good books which might make you cry, then read this book. I really can't recommend it enough. This is my new favorite book, and I love it so much that I can't really explain why I love it this much. I have so much to say that I don't want to say anything. Please read it, as a favor to me.

The Hike

The Hike, by Drew Magary, is about a man who gets well and truly lost. The man in question is Ben, a thirty-eight year old with a wife and three kids and a house and an important business meeting to get to. Before he goes to the meeting, he decides to take a walk. The walk turn into a hike. The hike turns into a mad sprint for his life. Then he gets lost.

The hotel is gone, as is the road, and all traces of human civilization. The only thing left is a path, and, seeing no other options, Ben follows this path, in the hopes that it will take him somewhere eventually. Then, strange things start to happen, and they keep getting stranger. Only one thing is clear: If Ben goes off the path, then he will die. As long as he stays on the path, he - well, the point is he should stay on the path.

The Hike is a beautifully written page-turner with memorable characters and one of the best endings I've ever seen. Honestly, I think The Hike is my favorite book now. It's hard to find words to express this fully. There's just nothing about it that I don't like. It has a great little mystery and a few twists which not only genuinely caught me by surprise but also made me completely change the way I framed the whole thing. I love it so much.

If you like good books, then you should read this book.

T. rex and the Crater of Doom

T. rex and the Crater of Doom is a book about science unlike any other I've read. Instead of trying to inform the reader about our current understanding of things, it tells the story about how we got there. In other words, it's not just about science, it's about how science is done. Specifically, it tells the story of how puny humans with short lives were able to figure out that all the dinosaurs were murdered by a massive space rock.

This story is told by Walter Alvarez, one of the geologists who first tried to investigate the strange layer at the K-T boundary, which lies right above where the dinosaurs disappear. Walter noticed that there was something odd about the boundary, and decided he would try to get to the bottom of it. As a result, he finds evidence which might go disprove one of the most basic ideas in geology at the time: the idea that all geologic changes happen gradually.

Although the story is gripping, the real reason I love this book is that it explains how science is actually done, not in the abstract, but with an actual real-world example. Anyone who has ever been doubtful of the claims that geologists or paleontologists make about the past needs to read this book. Anyone who thinks that these areas of science are somehow "lesser" than physics or [insert your favorite field here] needs to read this book. And, of course, anyone wondering how we could have possibly found out about this catastrophic event needs to read this book. T. rex and the Crater of Doom is an experience that everyone should have.

Beware The Wild

Natalie C. Parker's Beware the Wild is about a girl named Sterling, who lives in the small town of Sticks, Louisiana. Everything is pretty great in Sticks, so long as you never, under any circumstances, cross the fence and go into the swamp. When the book opens, Sterling is steadily watching the fence for any signs of her only sibling, Phin, who has of course run into the swamp.

Fortunately, her sister, Lenora May, reemerges from the swamp, just in time for her mother to call them in to dinner. There is no problem with this situation and everything is fine. Except for the small detail that Sterling doesn't have a sister. Or, well, she didn't. Everyone in town has excepted Lenora May as if she was always there, and nobody can remember Phin. In fact, Sterling herself distinctly remembers having Lenora May as a sister throughout her whole life.

Now, Sterling has to figure out what's happening, get her brother back, and send Lenora May back where she belongs. Or does she? First, she must play the age-old game of figure-out-who-you-can-trust-or-die. Saying any more about the plot would kinda spoil the fun of the game, so let's just leave it at that.

Beware the Wild is apparently Natalie's first book, and I have to say she's off to a really good start. The way she portrays the insidious replacement of memories is better than any other I've ever seen. I do think that the first half of the book, the aforementioned game of figuring things out, is better than the second half, or the game of ACTION. That's not to say that Beware the Wild ends badly, far from it, it's just that the first parts were so strong that the exciting, high-stakes climax seems just mediocre in comparison.

In conclusion, Beware the Wild is fun and exciting and a good way to spend a weekend. When you pick it up, you will find it difficult to put down. If you like fantasy in a modern setting with a pinch of the surreal, Beware the Wild is the book for you. Well, it's a book for you. You can also read other books. What I'm saying is you'll like it and you should read it.

The Rosie Project

The Rosie Project has a million covers, and it was reccommended to me profusely by my mom. It is supposedly a romance between Don, a professor with a rigid schedule and no social skills, and Rosie, a woman on a quest to find the identity of her biological father. It was okay.

I feel like I just didn't "get" the book. The central romance never really resonated with me, and for almost the entire thing I really wanted Don and Rosie to not get together. Apparently there were subtle hints the entire time that they were perfect for each other, but I just didn't notice. Also, my mom says the book was hilarious (as well as the reviewers on the cover, which is not surprising) but I didn't even laugh once. I also didn't cry once. Maybe it ate my feelings.

So, now I'm in the interesting situation that I didn't like the book, but I'm pretty sure that I'm wrong. I suppose, if someone else reccommends this book to you, you should listen to them. I won't stop you from reading it.

Also, it was written by Graeme Simsion. I couldn't figure out how to integrate that into the review.

The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, & June

I liked The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, & June, and my friends make fun of me for it. Yes, it is about girls, and yes, it has elements of romance, and yes, it is very cheesy, but it was fun to read and had an interesting story.

April, May, and June are three sisters, named in chronological order (April is the oldest and June is the youngest). They have just moved to the town of Somewhere Probably because their parents got divorced. Now, they are living with their mom, and about to start school. Already, this has a lot of stuff going for it, but it gets better: on the first day of school, the three sisters get superpowers.

I know, right? So, April gets the power to catch glimpses of the future, May gets the power to turn invisible, and June gets the power to read minds. Now, in a new town, at a new school, and with crazy secret powers, the three girls have to learn to live with their new lives.

The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, & June was a fun book to read. I was on board with the characters the whole time, and I wanted to see them triumph, and it feels good to share their struggles. If you like fun, cheesy books which are full of heart, then read this book. No matter what your friends say.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

I ragged on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (sometimes awkwardly abbreviated to HPMOR) quite a bit on my other blog. A lot of my points still stand. The characters start out unlikable, at least to me, to the point where I actually quit reading. Eventually, though... well, here I am, done with the book.

So, what is HPMOR? It is a fan-fiction of Harry Potter composed by Eliezer Yudkowski, He Who Is Not Recognized By Spell-Check. It takes place in an alternate-universe type deal in which Harry was raised by scientists and is a boy genius armed with the powers of Rationality. If that makes you really want to read it, then I doubt I could stop you even if I tried. If not, then... eh. It's cool.

That's it. This post is essentially just to say that I've read HPMOR. To reiterate: your first impression is probably indicative of how much you will like this book. I wouldn't recommend it if you don't buy into the premise. Laters!

Masterminds: Criminal Destiny

This is the second Masterminds book. If you want to know what I think about it, read my review of the original, because all of the same things apply. I'm not going to write a new review for this one, because there is a chance some of you will not have read the original Masterminds, and you should read it with no spoilers. That said, this book is amazing, so I'm just gonna gush for a while.

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Thank you. For reference, I started this book at like 11:00 AM today, and read until it was over. It's super good. As a great man once said, "if you like books about people doing things, you will probably love this book." Couldn't have said it better myself. I mean, I guess there should be a "then" in the second clause. But the point still stands.

READ IT!

The Girl With All The Gifts

The Girl With All The Gifts is a book about the end of the world. In it, a girl named Melanie is kept in a bunker, underground, sealed off from everyone else. Everyone always treats her as if she's extremely dangerous, along with the someteen other kids who share the bunker wit her. I'm not entirely sure how much I should spoil, because there is a nice little mystery through the first part of the book. One thing I will say is: it's totally zombies.

But then, after the mystery is all worked out, the compound is attacked. Melanie escapes, along with a ragtag group of individuals (I don't want to spoil who), and they all have to make it back to Beacon City, the last human stronghold in all of Great Britain. Along the way, they will have to survive bandits, come to uneasy agreements with each other, and not be eaten by zombies.

The zombies, by the way, are definitely a strong point in The Girl With All The Gifts. They are a variation of the cordyceps fungus (think The Last of Us) which essentially just means, "hey, this is technically possible, and therefore better than those other zombies!"* The zombies (which are called "hungries" by the cast) are thin and pale, and they spend most of their time stock-still. However, as soon as they hear a noise, they snap to attention and run towards it. If a hungry smells a human, it also immediately enters its rage state and runs towards it. This is actually a really clever idea, and it leads to the haunting image of a garden of pale figures, staying perfectly still.

There are, however, complications. There are other rules to the zombies which are revealed along the way, and they... well, honestly, they make absolutely no sense. Some of them, at least. This is the problem I have with the book: plot holes. So many plot holes. None of them are game-breaking, but they are certainly there. For someone as plot-driven as I am, this is a serious problem. I like picking apart exactly why and how things happen; it's one of the reasons I love time-travel stories so much. However, there are just too many things to pick at, here.

That's why, originally, I didn't want to write this. I don't like writing negative reviews. If I read a book and don't like it, I usually will just skip over it. However, this book has all of the things I like. An interesting premise. A hostile environment. Half-believable pseudoscience. Excellent characters. Objectively, this is a good book. But I didn't like it.

So, here's my conclusion: If you like zombies, or children, or adventure, or suspense, or mystery, or heartbreak, and you do not care at all about plot holes (or are not good at spotting them), then you should read this book.


*Really, though, there aren't any realistic zombies, just zombies that are slightly less impossible. The cordyceps fungus affects insects and arthropods, things with skeletons. They breathe through their skin. Humans don't. Also, the cordyceps fungus does not make an organism rant to attack or eat its own kind. That would be wildly inefficient. Instead, the fungus just makes it infiltrate its hive area and try to get into a good vantage point to spread its spores. I don't know of anything that deliberately makes an animal attack another animal. Even rabies just makes the animals angry, aggressive, and confused; as opposed to bloodthirsty. I think 28 Days Later's "rage virus" is the most semi-realistic zombie I've seen. Although the Brooks Zombies will always be the best ones.

tl;dr: Ain't no realistic zombies. Using an actual organism only helps with appearances. If you want a good, realistic interpretation of human cordyceps, take a few minutes to read Up, by Josef K. It's real short.

Raptor Red

Robert T. Bakker's Raptor Red is, as far as I know, the first book of its kind, by a long shot. It is not a book about people who bring dinosaurs to life. It is not a book about people with a time machine that travel to the time of the dinosaurs. It's not a book about a hidden land of dinosaurs, protected from time. It's not about cartoonish dinosaurs that generally act like humans. It's not even an informational book about dinosaurs. Nope. Raptor Red is just about dinosaurs.

Red is a Utahraptor lady, and lives during the early Cretaceous period. A land bridge has opened up from Asia to North America, and Red is one of the first Utahraptors to enter this strange land. Red's mate, Doomed-for-death,* dies in the first chapter, leaving Red to fend for herself. For weeks, Red is barely able to scrape by.

Luckily for Red, just when she is on the brink of death, she finds her sister, Run. While they have been separated, Run has managed to get three little raptor chicks: Chuck, Duck, and Hide. Red and Run now have to brave this new land, while protecting the three chicks and facing many perilous perils.

I really like the story, and the characters were all, surprisingly, very memorable. Bakker does a cool thing (like in The Once and Future King) where the animals' speech, mannerisms, and societies are all completely different for different species. You get to see into the minds of crocodiles, turtles, pterosaurs, little mammals, Gastonians, the whole lot of 'em. My only problem is that I think Bakker brings science in a little too much. Every chapter or so, he takes a few paragraphs to describe things scientifically, and it's not really needed.

Raptor Red is still a good book, though. If you like dinosaurs, you basically have to read it, because it's the first true dinosaur book. Actually, if you just like animals in general, you should read it as well, because not even many animal books can pull this off. If you don't like science that much, you can just skim the sciency bits, and it won't take away from the experience at all. This is definitely a book you should read, even just for its premise.

*None of the characters in the book are named except for Red, which makes sense, because she is the point-of-view character, and Utahraptors haven't invented language yet. As such, all the other names I use are ones that I've made up. You are welcome to use them if you want. Also, the guy's name is Sky.

Good Omens

Good Omens, written by both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, has like a million covers. It has way too many covers. I couldn't find a good photo of the one I read it inside (mostly white with a demon on the front), so I just picked the coolest-looking fan cover. Can't be bothered to sort through all those canonical covers. Just google it.

Anyways, Good Omens is supposed to have the subtitle: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. That is the title of a book of prophecies, all of which have come true so far. It also Prophecies the end of the world. Next Saturday.*

Generally, people think this is just hunky-dory. Does anyone say that anymore? Whatever. Two celestial individuals, Crowley the demon and Aziraphale the angel, have taken a liking to the world, and decide that they will try their best to stop it. To do this, they agree to both tutor the Antichrist equally, so that he cannot take a side and the world does not end. This works perfectly, and disaster is averted.

Not really. Things don't exactly go as planned, and now the duo has to find the Antichrist, who has grown up to be Adam, a simple boy from a small town. In that town there lives Anathema Device, a descendant of Agnes Nutter. She is being tracked down by Newton Pulsifer, who works under... you know, there's quite a few characters, actually. The four horsemen show up, too. It's great fun. In fact, I think my only complaint is that Pratchett and Gaiman didn't do more with the characters, towards the end. Then again, that's just about the best complaint to have about a book. I'd give it a read if I were you.

*Off the record, I wouldn't worry too much, because it's implied to have happened in 2004.

The Secret Series (The Name of This Book is Secret)

Here's a quick one. The Secret Series is one of my favorite book series. Probably in the top five. It's funny, smart(ish), charming, and chocolatey. The books come in five delicious flavors: The Name of This Book is Secret; If You're Reading This, It's Too Late; This Book is not Good for You; This Isn't What It Looks Like; and You Have to Stop This.

That's a quite of books (sorry for my grammar, I'm tired and sick). All in all, it's a whole quintilogy. Or a pentology? Whatever. I just finished rereading the series, and I loved it again. It stars Cass and Max-Ernest, two students who attend The School In Which Things Happen. There are also a whole host of cool, quirky side characters, none of which I will write about because I'm sick and tired.

I realise I'm not doing a great job of selling this, but trust me. The Secret Series is a few million times better than what I make it seem like it is. Wow, my sentences aren't even entirely coherent anymore. Look, I love these books. They were probably my favorite series for a while. If you like humor, magic and... the other stuff under "labels," give this series a try.

In conclusion. These books are real good. Read 'em. That's all I have the brain for today.

Masterminds

OH MY GOD IS MASTERMINDS A GOOD BOOK. Seriously, I started reading it on Monday, and finished today (Wednesday, or three days later, for you lazy folks). This book gives a new meaning to the phrase "page-turner", the pages practically turn themselves.  As one-of-the-dudes-from-the-back-of-the-book said: "Reading this book while doing anything else is dangerous."

Anyways. Adulation over. Masterminds follows five kids: Eli, Amber, Malik, Hector, and Tori. These kids live in the really small town of Serenity, where everything is perfect, except, you've read books before, so you already know that everything is not perfect at all.

It turns out, some of the kids in Serenity are... special, somehow. When Eli goes out of town with his best friend, Randy, he is struck by a crippling pain, while Randy remains fine. Fortunately, he is picked up by the town's army of Purple People Eaters in their nondescript, menacing black helicopter. You know, no biggie.

After the incident, Randy announces that he will be moving out of Serenity to live with his grandmother. But Eli thinks that Randy is acting strange. And then... well, then the book happens. All that stuff basically happens in the first chapter. This is a book that never seems to stop and take its breath, and it works.

In other words, if you have a weekend to kill, reading Masterminds is one of the best ways to do it. If you like books about people doing things, you will probably love this book.

Lawless

Lawless is a fun book. It's about a girl known only as M (which is kinda confusing at the beginning). M is a perfectly normal girl with completely average skills. Okay, that was actually a blatant lie. I mean, look at the cover.
M is recruited (somewhat against her will) to be a student at Lawless, a school whose motto is "sow all the chaos!" (okay, technically it's "Infinitum Chaos Enim," but I've captured their spirit pretty well). Wait. Is it "sow" or "sew"? Sow. But how is it pronounced? Is it sow-like-in-bow or sow-like-in-pew? Wait... are they pronounced the same? that can't be right. Someone broke Google.
Anywho.
Lawless is a school for master criminals, similar to H.I.V.E. in that - wait. Have I never written a post about H.I.V.E.? I need to get on that.
Okay. No more irrelevant tangents allowed. Lawless is a super duper secret school for bad guys, with advanced technology and quirky teachers. M is just thrown into this school, despite the fact that she never even knew that (spoilers) her father was a world-renowned criminal, and her whole life she was groomed to follow his footsteps. I'm pretty sure that is revealed really early, but I don't want to chance it.
At Lawless, M has to make friends she can trust, lie relatively low, and figure out her teachers and mysterious roommate, Zara. And then this whole "heist" dealie shows up. Yeah... things blow up really quickly (mostly figuratively).
The only complaint I have with Lawless is that it is not very good at science. There are very few books that I will say are not good at science, even almost all fantasy and sci-fi, but that bit at the end.... I won't go into detail, but if you have taken Physics 101, you may cringe a bit.
Not that it wasn't cool. Because that was cool.
In conclusion, if you like spy books, high-stakes befriending, and a good mystery-unraveling, this is a good book for you.